Ruminations on Balance

There is nothing much to report, unfortunately, and yet I'm desiring an update here anyway. Such are the pitfalls of egocentrism (oooo, what a word). I found myself, after a terrifying night out two days ago, needing a little rest and comfort. I settled in to catch up on some American television and eat some Doritos. As I write that, I cringe a little, and yet it was satisfying and wonderful and oddly fulfilling. I spent the first half or so worrying that I was somehow doing myself a disservice(sp?). I imagined all else that I could be doing, should be doing, would be doing if I had a more refined taste for adventure. How little I've seen. What little I've done. These were the thoughts racing through my mind. So I gave myself a small pep-talk. I told myself to relax. I told myself not to overthink things too much. It was like trying to trick my brain into slowing down. But it worked, in a fashion. The thought was not gone, only sequestered. And I kept a kind of bank of justifications up there in case it made a resurgence. And I relaxed.

There is this notion that I'm trying to fight or rationalize that everything I'm doing now has to be important. As I plan my various trips (Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Paris, Rome), I create this virtual map and imagine all that I'm going to experience, or might, should it fall within my range. This expectation fills me both with anticipation and regret. For Norwich, however interesting (and I really haven't been out enough in the city to say) cannot hold a candle to the imagined ideal of all of these different places. So I exist here almost as a spectre, convinced that experience will hand me something new and fantastic tomorrow. I don't know if this directly affects my behavior exactly. I believe I'm a rather standoffish person to begin with, but it definitely affects my perception. All around, as I'm surrounded by freshman here, I see people indulging in every whim. I remember that feeling. I remember that excitement. I can't be bothered to muster it again, though. And so I at once feel as though I am missing out on something and feel that I am somehow past it. And fuck if my mind doesn't whir at the prospect of such conflicting emotions, grinding them out till they're empty and dry. I liked my night in. I needed it. It was soothing. But is it a result of a passed judgment of this place, or of a desire to be removed from it in some way? I'm unsure.

I talk in circles. I make little sense. I apologize. I think, only, that I need to strike up some kind of balance. I need to both find roots here and not lose the magic of the notion of being a "lone traveller." This proves itself difficult, a challenge for me.

Anyway, I'll leave you with the first paragraph of "The Drifter," so far. I don't know about it, whether it seems too obvious or even too clunky, but it opens up a lot of possibility:

This had been a long time coming.
As the man sat in the small, blue floral kitchen and the smoke from his first cigarette in eight months curled lifelessly in indistinct spirals above him, the room appeared to him, suddenly, without doors or windows. He looked across to the far corner where he was sure there had been an entry to the living room only moments ago, but the lilacs of the wallpaper stretched, with apparent life and ill-intention, over a full block of wall. Above the sink, where once there had been windows, still more of these flowers bunched in on one another, first lightly and then with distinct violence. All around, the flowers seemed to carelessly expand and multiply, their pale green stems grappling with one another, as thin spindly arms, struggling to retain what little space they held. The walls moaned and bent under the apparent weight of the growing blue mass. As the lilacs blotted out the remaining inches of the paper’s dull yellow background, a pall of silence fell on the scene. Even the man’s own sharp, nervous gasps were left voiceless in his throat. There was a palpable tension, an anticipation of what was to come now that the lilacs had won their war with the walls, stretching them to the bursting point of a helium-filled balloon. Only when this tension was fully exhausted, could a small pop be heard as a single lilac sprouted and bloomed forth from the center point of the straining wall opposite him.

Passing through Dis(s)

This is a travel blog, right? (I like the idea of starting a piece of writing with a disconnected, unexplained sentence before moving swiftly to a new paragraph. My new piece of writing starts with "This was a long time coming" and then begins to describe lilac wallpaper).

So I boarded my first UK train after a rather stressful bus/ticket-office experience. Despite leaving nearly an hour and a half early, circumstances led to me dashing down the platform as the doors to my train were closed one by one. I screamed to the man as he closed the door to last coach (this being the first time I have been openly rude to a local) to stop and let me on. He did, explaining to me as I entered that I could have opened one of the other doors, entered, and closed it after myself. My face was a little more than red. I settled on the train as it departed for London. I couldn't miss it because? Well this happened to be Anna Kolesnikov visit number one - and I wasn't giving up on that for any reason short of a ruptured appendix or brain hemhorrage.

The train ride was long. Norwich is pretty disconnected, apparently. I turned on Kelsey's "Open Road" playlist and intermittently read an awesome book about hippies crashing in Torremolinos and stared out the window at the passing countryside. I remembered why I was a vegetarian. Cows are fucking cute. There was this mother and her calf curled into one another, covered by a smal thicket of brush on the side of the road. All open land and space to roam - hills, valleys and grass. I love cows. Who among you meat-eaters could kill a beautiful baby calf? That's not preaching. Just a thought.

Anyway, there was little else of interest except for a short stop outside the town of Dis(s). And for those of you (shout "here" if your there) who are Dante fans, my God was this place a good facsimile for its second-"s"-absent literary counterpoint. Abandoned, half-gutted buildings and mounds and mounds of industrial waste. I thought to myself, does this mean that my final destination (London) is a Hell facsimile or that of Dante's ultimate destination of Paradise? Yes, I overthink weak metaphors.

When I arrived at Great Portland Street station, I found myself stunned speechless at the sight of Anna. It had been three years. It had been too long. After a few minutes' struggle to regain the shared language of our ten-year-old friendship, we fell into an easy rapport. Three words: Anna is awesome. Not just that. She had three more years of awesome under her belt and yet with these years of mutual but separate growth, we still shared some of that enigmatic stuff at the heart of our friendship of three years ago. Three more words; London is beautiful. Emily Hella still often recalls a drug-addled request of Mother Nature to bring on "MORE OVERCAST! MORE WINDY!" Well she succeeded in London. It was the perfect day. Anna was the perfect guide. We wandered up and down streets, got lost repeatedly, having to reference the GPS on her phone. She apologized, repeatedly. I assured her, as it did, that this only added to the charm of the experience. We talked and talked and talked as we wandered through London's streets. We even reminisced a little bit, creating nostalgia for a place that we had earlier agreed held little for us now.

Things we happened upon: Trafalgar Square (where two intense antisocial people huddled over computers and dictated moves to two helpers who then picked up the pieces to a gigantic chessboard and followed instructions, drawing quite the crowd; where Anna forced me to take a begrudging picture with the famous lions), Big Ben (which always reminds me of my father), Parliament (where we realized we could not walk in the "out" doors; where we proceeded to trespass on the Parliament carpark to ask a question; where several tourists followed our example, greatly annoying the guard), a real, dank English pub (where, to my surprise, I was able to order a falafel burger; where we did not order any alcoholic beverages; where I realized that I am not, in fact, an alcoholic; where Anna was sorely disappointed by the quality of the food; where she continued to mention how wonderful Notting Hill is; where I giggled to myself as all I could imagine was engaging in a troubled romance with Julia Roberts); the real Soho (where, suspiciously, nothing was happening; where, I assume, all of London's hipsters were gathering in some basement plotting a sinister, but eco-friendly, plot to destroy the earth).

Things we could not find: Anna's university (at which I laughed, seeing as she was currently living in the university's housing)

Best moment: leaning on the railing of the bridge over Thames as the wind bandied us about and we watched the passing driftwood/garbage and discussed Che Guevara and life and beauty and wind and tourists and how Parliament made absolutely no sense at all but was really pretty and ornate.

After a While, You Forget to be Complete

I am not a very lucky person, but my God if this day didn't just turn that on its head. Maybe it's Great Britain. Maybe it's the brisk Norwich air. But whatever it was that was making me feel like shit the last couple of days isn't from here, doesn't belong here and is hopefully gone forever. Background is needed here. I have yet to write in this travelogue(-blog?) because on my first night here, I accidentally trashed my computer - soaked it in liquid. It shorted out, it fried (an ammendmment should be put on my "not lucky" proclamation as I managed to break my computer the very same day I purchased five hundred pounds of accidental damage insurance on it - caching!) I was feeling lost, alone. I was equal parts self-loathing and self-pitying. I kept on a brave face. On top of being a damn yankee, I didn't want to appear to be a whiny, baby bitch. If I were a melodramatic person here is where I would loudly declare, "Kelsey McLane saved my very life!" I don't have a single furnishing in this room - no pictures, trinkets or anything of nostalgic value, save for Kelsey's Ipod. And what an Ipod it is! It is the Willy Wonka chocolate factory of ipods. Everywhere you turn, there is something more spectacular and enlightening than all that came before could possibly prepare you for. I took refuge in this Ipod. There was the astounding ferry ride video in which Kelsey's car seems to float above tumultuous waters, carving a Moses-inspired path into the sea. There was The Royal Tenenbaums for those hours when all I needed was the whispering of sweet oddities into my ear by facsimiles for Salinger characters. There was the massive and inspired Citizen Kane playlist to wile away the hours. I was still toiling in my self-inflicted turmoil, but this ipod was the equivalent of a giant hug from everyone I love.

But it only got worse - today my bathroom flooded after I took a short, five-minute shower. The water began to spill out and pool on my carpet. I didn't have time to do anything about it as my registration appointment was looming. I rushed off, dissapointed, upset. In registration, I then discovered that I was signed up for two classes in the same time slot -- and there was nothing I could do about it. I paused for a "WHAT THE FUCK?!" moment. But then it all became too much. I was exhausted, dejected. I needed to pass out. I needed human contact - the familiar kind. I called my dad. I had an inane question that took a while to ask. I made it longer. It was a technical question, about computers. I usually grow tired of my father's ranting and gushing quickly, but in this moment, more than any other, I saw how much love was in it, how truly genuine my father's emotions were and how this was the best and only way he knew to express them. He eventually handed the phone to my mother and after all that build-up, I completely broke down. I started recounting my simple, fixable problems and couldn't hold on. Me crying (or showing much emotion at all) is a biannual thing at best (biannual, in this case, meaning once every two years) and my mother hadn't been in audience for such an occurance since I was eight or nine and realized in the middle of the night that God didn't exist. I've spent the last five or six years of my life trying to convince my mom to suppress her motherly urges as I was an "adult." But sometimes you just need to let a mom be a mom.

I hung up and curled up and let it wash over me - the full weight of all that had occured. And then I drank a BOOST that was provided in my student survival kit. BAM. Life in a can, I swear to you. I walked to the bus stop with a shopping list - comforter, pillows, plates, utensils, furnishings. I was meant to take the bus to a giant Costco-like superstore at the end of the line. When the bus came, I got on, got my ticket punched, sat and listened to moody music, acted moody, glared moodily. I was still having a pretty crappy day. I was just energized, so I could put real oomph into my moping.

On my way to the end of the line, the bus stopped in the city centre, which was hustling, bustling and full of life. The bus drained and I followed the life. There were stores of every shape and size. It was a simple adventure of massive importance. The city centre is like Diagon Alley without all that superfluous magic. Twists and turns, brick corridors, buildings that look old and buildings that are trying to look old. There are two Tescos, a department store called "The Department Store" and the familiar signs for Subway and Pizza Hut. If Kelsey liked showtunes I would have put on "Nowadays" from Chicago. I walked and walked and walked. I don't think the Britons (sp?) quite knew how to take the thick, toothy grin that kept spreading, receding, expanding and settling. Things suddenly opened up. I barely got anything - paper plates, plastic forks, deodorant - but it all seemed worth it.

If this comes across as anticlimactic, I apologize. There was nothing to it but being there. When I was done, my years of practice with LA public transit told me to cross the street and grab the same numbered bus back to the school -- but the 35 didn't pick up there. The 25 didn't either. I was confused, but not perturbed. I just went looking for the stop. I must have curled two or three miles in, out and around the city centre, but there was no frustration. The endorphines built up a perfect high. There was finally an outlet for my desire for adventure. I started walking in the direction I assumed the campus was in. I was bound to find a bus stop eventually, and if I didn't, the 5-7 mile walk home (or deeper into the city, as dusk approached, if I picked the wrong direction) would be some story. Now here's where the luck of the first sentence creeps in. I am not the guy who finds that bus stop. I am the guy who gets horribly lost, winds up in a bad neighborhood, and suffers the tragic cold open of a CSI episode. But there it was - a little podunk 25 bus stop - and only after a mile and a half or so of walking. The bus rolls along five minutes later and I go to the top floor and sit at the very front, and it is as though I am floating above the raucous scene below, carving a Moses-inspired path through the wrong side of the road. I got off the bus too early, mastaking one side of the enormous campus for the other. I walked another mile and when I got to my room, the water had receded and it all didn't seem as large and impossible as it did before. And I suddenly had a huge window that looked out on a million things that were all brand new. And now that I'm finishing this post (handwriting, I'll type it when I get the computer. UPDATE: typing, on the computer, that I've received) and think of rest for my limp cheeks and sore feet, I know that everything is as it should be.